PARENTS of children who skip school will be fined up to é100 in a crackdown on truancy.

Families of children who are missing from classes without reasonable excuse on 20 occasions during a 10-week period will be fined é50.

The fine will double if it is not paid within 28 days, and parents who have not paid within 42 days will be prosecuted. Fines will also be issued if a pupil is late for school 10 times within a 10-week period.

And parents who take their children on holiday during term-time without the school's "prior knowledge" will receive warning notices.

Parents will also receive notices if their child is stopped during a truancy sweep and found to have been absent from school on three other occasions.

Fines will be issued to both parents, so a family with three children could face six separate penalty notices.

Courts also have the power to issue special parenting class orders.

The crackdown is being carried out in Bury.

Thirty parents were taken to court in the town for failing to ensure their children's regular attendance during the last school year - a 50 per cent increase.

Figures

Alan Cogswell, head of Bury council's education and welfare service, said: "This is the most comprehensive package of preventative measures to stop truancy we have ever had. It's about making parents more accountable for their children's attendance and getting tougher on the worst offenders.

"We're saying to parents we have done as much as we can, now it's up to you."

The move comes despite the fact that truancy figures in Bury are bucking the national trend. Figures released this week show high school truancy rates fell by 28 per cent alone during the last academic year.

Unauthorised absence in Bury's primary schools fell for the third consecutive year last year. At 0.2 per cent, the figure is at its lowest since absence records began in 1993.

Four of Bury's high schools, The Derby, St Monica's, St Gabriel's and Parrenthorn High School, have truancy levels of just 0.1 per cent.

Bury council is now eighth best-performing local education authority in England when it comes to tackling unauthorised absence. Mr Cogswell said: "Whilst these are excellent figures, we are not complacent."

The Department of Education and Skills has invested é885 million since 1997 on projects to improve attendance. Overall absence rates have dropped from 7.6 per cent to 6.7 per cent of school days.

The rate of truancy however has remained steady at about 1.1 per cent.